


Survivors

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [72]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s10e08 The Lie of the Land, F/M, Family Feels, Frenemies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 10:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: “Doctor,” Bill began, in that tone of voice that meant she not only had questions, but that each of those questions had several subcategories of follow-up questions.  God, he’d missed her, but he’d a lot on his mind, and was not prepared for an interrogation at the moment.





	Survivors

“Doctor,” Bill began, in that tone of voice that meant she not only had questions, but that each of those questions had several subcategories of follow-up questions.  God, he’d missed her, but he’d a lot on his mind, and was not prepared for an interrogation at the moment.

“Yeah?” he replied, warily.

“Is something the matter?”

“Wha— of course something’s the matter, there’s a bloody alien occupation on!  Again!  Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“Well, _yeah,_ but…”

“Is that not reason enough for me to be a wee bit tetchy?”

“Well, tetchy’s alright, you just seem a little…”

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and saw her exchanging a look with Nardole.

“...manic?” she finished timidly.

He’d clearly made a mistake in introducing psychology to his curriculum.

“What, is that all?” he huffed.  “Well good.  I get some of my best work done that way, ask anyone.”

In his peripheral vision, Nardole shrugged in what might have been begrudging agreement.

“Now, if you’re quite finished psychoanalysing me, we’ve got to get back to the mainland.  We’ve work to do!  Nardole, who’s at the helm of this thing?  I’d like to have a word.”

“Sir, we’ve sent word, we’re already headed back to Portishead.”

“Yeah, yeah, just, here, give me your walkie.  Who’s driving?”

“Justin,” Nardole said, frowning suspiciously as he passed it over.

“Justin!” the Doctor cheered into the receiver.  “How are you, mate?  You used to be in the theatre before the Monks, didn’t you?  I bet you love to make an entrance.”

 

___

 

In the vault, the Doctor fumed, pacing back and forth.  Missy was not helping.  This was not the way to help.  Suggesting the casual sacrifice of innocent people was not being good.  He’d actually been excited to see her, remembering the progress they’d seemed to have made before all the rubbish with the Monks began.  He’d been hoping against hope she’d prove him right.  He really fucking needed something to hope for.

Well, that’s what he got for being an idiot.

She eyed him calmly from behind the containment field.  

“Your version of _good_ is not absolute.  It's vain, arrogant and sentimental.  If you're waiting for me to become all that,” she leaned forward and went on in a stage whisper, “I'm going to be here for a long time yet.”

He met her stare, seething.  She didn't flinch.

“Bill,” he said, not looking behind him, “go on, I’ll meet you outside.”

“You sure, Doctor?” she asked dubiously.

“I can handle myself,” he grumbled.

“Hah!” Missy barked, turning away from him dismissively to sit on her piano bench again.

He waited until he heard Bill’s steps retreating and the vault doors closing behind her.  Missy had resumed playing Satie’s _Gnossienne No. 1,_ ignoring him.

He disengaged the forcefield with his sonic, stalking over to the opposite side of the piano.

“Thought I wasn’t going to get to meet your little ones, Doctor,” she said lightly, before he could launch into his tirade.  He hesitated; she didn't look up from the keys.

“Bill’s not my kid.  She’s one of what you so judiciously termed ‘my little pets.’”

“Maybe if you’d told yourself that in the mirror every morning this wouldn’t be so difficult for you.”

He clenched his teeth and his fists.  She was _not_  going to get a rise out of him.  She continued to play.

"This is not how we do it, Missy.  This isn't..." the Doctor sighed, all his righteous anger draining and leaving him with disappointment and grief.  “I thought we were making progress."

“I told you, Doctor, I’m committed.  I’m trying.  You said yourself, there’s other brands of ‘good’ apart from yours.”

“She wouldn’t do this,” he hissed.  “Never.  Not an innocent.  She’d sacrifice herself first.”  He swallowed.  “She did.”

Missy glanced up at him sharply and he turned his head, glaring out of the simulated windows.

“But is your little girlie really innocent?  It’s her fault the Monks are here.”

“She did it to save my life.”

“Oh, so this is guilt, then?  She made that choice because she knows your life is worth more than hers, Doctor.  And she’s right.  There’s no point in arguing it.”

“It _is not!”_ he shouted, and Missy abruptly stopped playing, regarding him coldly.  “My life isn’t worth more than anyone’s!  Certainly not Bill’s!  And never…” his voice faltered and he squeezed his eyes shut.  “Why am I always the one being fucking saved?  Did anyone ever ask me if that’s what I wanted?!”

He caught a glimpse of her squinting in concern before he averted his eyes again, looking down at his shaking hands.

“Doctor,” she said, rising from the bench, “what’s happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar,” she instantly replied.

“Better people than me have died to save me,” he said quietly.  “More times than I want to count.  They made the wrong choice, and I couldn’t stop them.  But I have to keep going because now I’m responsible for trying to make their deaths worth it.  That’s my impossible task.  My, my fucking _penance_.  I’ll never be worth a single one of them.  You understand?”

She just watched him, wide-eyed.

“And I’ll be damned if Bill dies to save me,” he growled.  “That is not how we do it.  We put ourselves on the line, _not them.”_

“But they’re _humans_.  It’s simple maths, they live for five minutes!”

The Doctor felt a rueful smile stealing over his face, words from the memories of a distant life coming easily to his lips again.  “It’s not about numbers, Missy.  You look at what’s in front of you.”

“Fine,” she said after a thoughtful interval, raising her chin and taking a step toward him.  “I’m looking.  Are you alright, Doctor?”

He scoffed, shaking his head and running his hand through his hair, as he stepped down from the platform.  "I'm always alright."

"Again: liar," she said to his back.  "Shouldn't this go both ways, Doctor?  Isn't honesty part of being _'good?'"_

"In my experience?  Not often.  Rule One."

He stopped in his tracks.  

Oh, no.  No, that wasn't Rule One.  Not anymore.

He dropped his head in his hand as tears stung his eyes.  But what good was the New Rule One with anyone else?  Without River?

What good was any of it without her?

"Doctor?"

“I’m off to save the world, Missy," he said hoarsely, starting for the vault door again.  "See you if I survive it.”

 

___

 

Of course he would be plugging his brain into a transmitter that would, quite possibly, burn it out.  Fitting, really.  It wouldn’t be anyone else this time.  No one else was taking this fall for him.  

He grinned at Bill as he stood over the Monk’s head.  She smiled nervously back at him, her eyes wide with worry.  Manic, she'd said.  Well, manic got the job done.  It probably wouldn’t even kill him.

He really had to stop thinking things like that, it just invited trouble.

“Oh, I didn’t agree to this,” he gasped.

It was fighting back.  Fighting back with all the intimate knowledge of an infinite number of simulations— perfect replicas of his mind and his memories and everything that constantly haunted him.

 _“You’re too late,”_ it said, in the cruel voice of his own inner monologue.   _“They both died before you even knew them.”_

 _“I’m saving her,”_ he thought, desperately.   _“Me and Milly are saving her.  She must know about Athena.  We’ll save them both.”_

 _“You already had your time with them,”_ his mind taunted.   _“Did you really think you could get more?  You don’t deserve those things, Doctor.  Not after everything you’ve done.  Your family is over.  Just like before, one survivor.  But you’ll leave her behind too, like you left Susan, because you can’t face her after you failed to save them.  She’s better off without you.”_

 _“No.”_  He gritted his teeth, forcing his mind to stand firm against the onslaught.   _“Milly knows them.  She comes from a future where we’re all together.”_

_“Or she doesn’t, and she was here to change it, and she failed.  You failed them.”_

_“No!”_

_“Where is she?  Where’s your River, if she’s out of the Library?  Maybe it all went wrong and that’s why you don’t see her anymore.  Maybe instead of getting her out, you deleted her.”_

He realised he was screaming and then everything was black.

___

The first thing he noticed when he woke was that his hands were tied.  Cold dread spread through his chest and dripped down his spine.

_Oh, no, no, no, no._

Bill was crouched in front of him.  “I wanted to do it before you woke up,” she whispered, “but I had to say goodbye.”

_Come on, what are you doing?  That's my job._

_Oh, and I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?_

“Bill,” he said, trying to stay calm and sound reasonable while his hearts began to hammer so violently in his chest he felt they’d burst.  “Whatever you're planning, there's no need for this.  Let me try again.  He caught me unawares.  Cup of tea and I'll get my second wind.”

“Even your brain couldn't stand another roasting like that.”

_This is not a joke.  Stop this now.  This is going to kill you!  I'd have a chance, you don't have any!_

“So we'll find another way.  Let me talk to Missy again!”

_You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I!_

“We have the answer, Doctor, _please,”_ she cried.  “I don't want our last conversation to be _this.”_

_River, please, no._

“I don't want this to be our last conversation,” he choked out.

_There's nothing you can do._

“Goodbye, Doctor.”  

She leaned in to kiss his cheek and his mind was racing, screaming that he had to stop this, this was not happening, _not fucking again._

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.  “God, it was worth it.”

_Not those times.  Not one line.  Don't you dare._

Bill stood.  Finally, his body began to catch up with his brain.

“Bill.  Bill, no, don't, Bill.  Bill, Bill— it will kill you, Bill.  It's too powerful.  _Bill, I, I order you!”_

Fucking Nardole was hugging her, why was he letting her do this?!  Didn’t he know?!

“I'm ordering you not to do this!  Bill!   _Nardole, untie me!”_ he growled, straining desperately against his bonds.   _“Nardole, untie me now!_  Bill, don’t do this!”

The Doctor broke free, a second too late.

Bill’s hands laid over the Monk’s skull and her eyes shone blue, her lips parting in a gasp.

He leapt to his feet, watching the screens around the inside of the room flicker and change.  Sweet little Bill, just a child, just like his own girls who, somewhere out there in time, lifetimes ago or just a short jump across the ocean, were still waiting for him to fix this and bring them all together…

But he had her, here and now.  Couldn’t he at least do that?  Couldn’t he just save Bill?

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no!”  One by one, her little smiling faces were replaced with the rotting skulls of the Monks.  “They're hijacking her memories, infecting them like a virus.  She's just reinforcing their lies.   _She's dying for nothing!”_

He scrambled to the Monk’s stupid bloody transmission throne, fumbling at the base, shouting in frustration.  “There must be a way to shut this thing down!”

“Doctor, look!”

He turned to the screens again, wide-eyed.

_Oh._

_Bill's mum._

“You clever, brilliant, ridiculous girl," he breathed, hope blooming again between his hearts.  "Look at that!  All the pictures I gave you.  I thought I was just being kind, but I was saving the world!  Bill, if there's any of you left in there, listen!”

 _Stupid Doctor._  Why hadn’t he thought of it?  Just like River saved him in the simulation; just like she always saved him.

“You have to keep thinking about your mum, the memory you created.  Her voice, her smile.”  Tears filled his eyes as he grinned.  “The Monks can't get near it.  Fill your mind with it!  Push it into every corner.

“She's filling its mind with one pure, uncorrupted, irresistible image.  And it's broadcasting it to the world, because it can't help it.”  

He turned away from Nardole, shutting his eyes.  

He could always see her.

“All those years you kept her alive inside you, an isolated subroutine in a living mind.  Perfect, untouchable.  She's a window on the world without the Monks.  Absolutely loved, absolutely trusted.”  He swallowed down a lump in his throat.

“And that window is opening everywhere.  A glimpse of freedom.  But a glimpse is all we need.”

___

The stillness that followed after kicking an occupying alien force off of the world was always a strange sort of time.  The quiet, the calm, was a palpable thing.  Even if things always stubbornly reverted to the way they were, for a few moments it _seemed_ like a new beginning.  A good time for telling the truth.  For being a little vulnerable.  It was a good time for a bumbling idiot to have his first kiss with the goddess who, for some reason, loved him.

Or for sitting in Bristol’s late-winter damp, sharing a flask of tea with the girl the Doctor kept telling himself wasn’t his daughter.  He really didn’t need another one of those.

She was sure to break his hearts someday, no matter what he said.

Everybody did, in the end.  Wasn’t their fault.  He said the safest place in the world was by his side.  He supposed it made him feel better to think that than to reflect on the historical inaccuracy of the claim.

Really, he had only one long-term survivor.

___

As he tossed aside his magazine, he wondered if something he said to Missy had actually struck a nerve, or if this was all theatre.  He kept telling himself he didn’t believe it.  The trouble was, he did.  The perpetual idiot.

“You never told me,” she said, wiping at her eyes and sniffing as she turned back from the windows.  “What’s happened to you.”

“The world was invaded.  I was on a prison ship for six months.”

She sighed heavily, rolling her eyes.  “Don’t play games with me, Doctor.”

And for some reason, he didn’t want to.  He was just too tired.

“I thought…" he started to speak and faltered, staring at the wall.  Afraid if he voiced his fears, they'd be more real.  Or he could just let them continue to eat him up in silence.  He took a deep breath.  "I thought I knew that it all worked out in the end.  I thought I’d seen it.  Missy... I promised her.  And now I have no fucking idea.”

He hesitated, but when he glanced in her direction she was looking at him with open concern.  He pulled a 3x5” photo that was rapidly becoming worn at the edges from his pocket and passed it to her with shaking hands.

“Oh, the dandy!” she exclaimed.  “I remember you.  I was… well.”  She cringed.  “That was one of our more troubled periods, I suppose.”

“You were bald,” the Doctor said, smirking.

“Shut up.”  She glared at him before turning her eyes back to the photo.  “That’s her?” she asked quietly.

“Two regenerations before we were supposed to have met," he said, fondness and pride filling his hearts.  "Well, I suppose three, actually.  And that’s Milly.  Our second child.  ...I think.  Honestly, I’m extremely confused about the order now.”

“Do you remember this?”

“Not until recently.”

“So now you’re afraid you’ve already done all you’re going to get.”

“Something like that,” he admitted.

“You’re an idiot.”

He shrugged.

"Isn't that basically your self-loathing saying 'I can't have nice things?'" she aped in an exaggeratedly deep Scottish grumble.

He frowned in thought.  "Maybe."

"Like I said: idiot."

The Doctor closed his eyes, dropping his head back in his chair.  “That’s not all,” he mumbled.

“What the bloody hell  _is_ it, then?”

He took a deep breath as his lip wobbled treacherously, waiting until he thought his voice would hold to speak.

“Ever heard of the Library?”

 

 


End file.
